In her new book ‘The Art of Relevance,’ MAH director Nina Simon explores what it takes to connect, and stay connected, to the community

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Museum of Art and History Executive Director Nina Simon has written ‘The Art of Relevance,’ a practical guide to working with community members and visitors to make cultural institutions more dynamic, relevant, essential places. (Shmuel Thaler -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

Museum of Art and History Executive Director Nina Simon works to bring accessible art to the community. (Shmuel Thaler -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

If you or I woke up one morning as the executive director of the Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, we would certainly figure out, pretty quickly, that part of our job is to visit and keep tabs on what other museums around town and around the world are doing. The woman who actually has the job, Nina Simon, does that kind of thing all the time. But she also does what might not occur to you or me. She visits and keeps her eye on national parks, libraries, theater companies, even churches.

“One of the things I like to do,” said Simon, “is to just walk down the street and go into businesses and think about, what does it feel like to come into this space? Whether it’s a tattoo parlor or a gymnastics studio or a bank, what are the forms of invitation for people to come in?”

Ultimately, she is on the search for relevance.

On Aug. 11, Simon will walk down the street from the MAH to Bookshop Santa Cruz to discuss and sign copies of her new book “The Art of Relevance,” an exploration into that magic something that museums – and many other non-profits and companies – are always trying to find: relevance.

It was while visiting museums, parks, libraries and theaters that Simon began to notice a pattern. “Again and again,” she said, “you would hear people standing up in a crowd at these conferences and say, ‘We’ve got to make our work more relevant.’ I hear in that two things. On the one hand, there is an incredible urgency to connect with people who maybe we haven’t connected with before. And on the other hand, there is a fear that if our institutions are not sufficiently relevant to the right people or to enough people, then these institutions might just go away.”

What is relevance in the context of attracting people to engage with your work? And how do you find it? That’s the question at the heart of Simon’s new book.

Last summer, she is convinced that the MAH found it with the landmark exhibit “Princes of Surf,” which brought from Hawaii two of the original three solid redwood surfboards used in Santa Cruz in the 1880s, on what is believed to be the first instance of surfing in the Americas.

“People had an emotional connection (to the ‘Princes of Surf’ exhibit and related programs) that was fundamentally different. There was a real sense of excitement and energy that was different than what I expected.”

“The Art of Relevance” drops in on a variety of arts and cultural organizations across the country and how those organizations are not only adapting to changing demographic realities, but how they are actively reconfiguring their mission to widen the scope of their potential audience.

Simon has been a transformative figure at the MAH since she first took over in 2011. Attendance to the museum has tripled as she and her staff have significantly changed the MAH’s mission and focus. She and the changes that she’s brought about has been embraced and praised by many in the community, criticized by others. One thing everyone can agree on is that one label that can never apply to Simon in relation to what the MAH was before she arrived is “business as usual.”

“One of the critiques of the MAH over the last few years,” she said, “has been, ‘Oh, you’re doing a lot to bring new people in the door, but are they really having a meaningful experience?’ Well, we think about that and grapple with that all the time. I believe we are providing meaningful experiences. It’s just that different people need different doors in, and meaning looks different to them. We have to be OK with that.”

In 2015, concurrent with the “Princes of Surf” exhibit, was a “Dear Jerry” exhibit on the Grateful Dead. This week, a new exhibit opens focused on the famous “Screaming Hand” icon created by artist Jim Phillips for the Santa Cruz-based NHS skateboard brand. Turning the museum into a touchstone for reflection on surfing, the Dead and the Screaming Hand is exactly the kind of relevance she’s talking about, though many traditionalists might scoff at what they may view as pandering to a mass audience for the sake of attention.

“When you have an exhibition on some aspect of pop culture, like the Screaming Hand, you really have to think about this question: When are you rehashing what this thing is about, and when are you adding something new? There are ways you can connect with pop culture that are very surface-level, and there are ways to do it to introduce depth.”

Simon said that the potential audience for “The Art of Relevance” is anyone involved in a mission-driven organization, be it a museum, a theater company or a church. It has lessons for artists, writers and performers on how to think about audiences. She said that people often make the mistake that their work is universal and they don’t need to think about relevance, or that the relevance will be obvious once people engage with the work.

“This is not just about marketing,” she said. “It’s about inviting people to make a connection with something broader – because, frankly, people are busy, and art and history are things that we know are valuable – they’re the vegetables of our cultural diet – but people are not stumbling on these every day.”

The new book touches on Simon’s own life in ways that are pertinent to her topic. For instance, she talks about her father, “Screamin’” Scott Simon, a musician with the rock group Sha Na Na. In explaining how relevance is a moving target for artists, and a risk for artists who resist change, she wrote of her father’s group, “In the 1970s, Bruce Springsteen opened for them. By the 1990s, their opener was an elephant.”

“I spent my childhood on the road with my dad and the band,” she said. “His career peaked at 23 years old. It was really interesting to be up close to that and watch the audiences get smaller. And what do you do with that? Do you try to change? Or stay true to what you do? That experience really taught me compassion.”